updated 10:20 pm EDT, Tue October 9, 2012

Former Apple employee original owner of 22nd board produced

The original Apple I motherboard for sale at Christie's auction house failed to sell. The auction company expected the board to sell for $127,000, but the bidding failed to reach the reserve price, resulting in no sale. The top bid was reported to be $51,155, well short of the $80,000 reserve.

The unit, with serial number 22, came from former Apple employee Joe Copson. The unit originally came with just 8K of RAM and no case, keyboard or monitor. A estimated 50 of the 150-200 units produced have survived, and only six are thought to be in working order.

One of the working units was auctioned off in June and fetched $375,000, double its initial estimate. At the same auction, some of Apple's founding documents were sold for $1.6 million.